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The crates at one of the port cities are possessed! And Konoha has to investigate.

Poster's note: foul language filtered in obvious places.

"Mystery of the Haunted Crates"

Land of Fire

Help! Help! A letter of pleading for help with kind of disturbing issue related to cargo in a small trade town on the eastern border of the Land of Fire. Various shipments have all been sabotaged somehow or something. Almost every shipment coming into this village manages to self-destruct in one way or another when it's being moved. The person who sent the letter was a bit too stressed out to give any usable details for the trip in the letter, but at least the team would know they're in for some sort of investigation. What this trail leads to… the shinobi shall figure out for themselves!

WEll, an investigation. What the spook is he doing on this mission? Oh, right, Jounin, blah blah. Sigh. Hige just deals with it for now and goes to wait for the rest of the team at the gates, reviewing the letter and shaking his head at the severe lack of detail involved. He'd need to teach these villagers how to write a real friggin' report.

Daichi moves on along to the gates slowly. He was not much for investigations. He didn't mind the mission, but he just felt like he would be of no use here. Upon reaching the gates he look up at Hige who was most likely leading this mission. Not many would take his place surely. "Hey Hige. Anything I may need to know about this mission?" He walks on over finding a place to sit, and pulls out his sketchbook.

Shugo had heard about the frantic man coming into the village in such a manner and since Hige was already on the case the Nara groaned internally while he gathered a few things for a trip. Annoying civic duty and needy people under attack. He was trying to take a nap for star's sake! Not that it mattered to Hige of course, if he complained it would just be called training or something to get Shugo off his lazy butt and get a move on.

"Anything you need to know?" Hige asks of Daichi, then he nods and before the boy can open his sketchbook he throws him the mission information. "Yep, you're leading. Get to it." There we go, neatly handled. Hige will stay on board to oversee of course, but he won't worry about too much more than that for now. Ahh, there we go.

Daichi had not even opened his sketchbook when mission information landed on the book. He put his sketchbook away and eyed the mission detais like it was gibberish. "You want me to lead? Ummm….okay." Daichi figured Hige was playing a weird joke, and would let him try to lead while leading from the sides anyways. Once the other two arrived he decided they should head out pretty quickly, and right away would do just that explaining what he understood as they went. "Ummm. Lets see. So the mission seems to involve these carts of supplies randomly self destructing in different random ways each time they arrive at this village, so I suppose when we get there we can look around and ask around for any information since for some reason there is nothing useful in this stupid letter." He continued eyeing it as he for some reason lead the group to this village.

Shugo hated moving far more than the next guy but he also knew that with Hige along slacking of wasn't an option so even as his hands slid into his pockets, the Nara didn't sit down or relax for the time being. The fact that the taijutusu-nut was going to be leading the mission however, now that, the Nara wasn't planning on. Following after the tai-nut without complaint to the turn of events, Shugo would give Hige a curious glance while passing but not bother with making a comment. Perhaps Daichi was just Hige's chew toy for the day..

As the group comes into the village, an elder man in a brown tunic and pants darts out of a building to the side of the path that leads into the village with a look of relief on his face. "Thank you for coming so quickly," he says as he bows at the waist quickly enough that he has a little trouble getting back up to an upright position. His face turns a serious red in flush as he tries to do so… crack.. pop… pop.. crack… CRACK!
After that last deafening crack, he's finally back up and says, "Whew… Anyway, if you'll come with me to the warehouse by the docks, I can show you what's happening." With that he turns and walks toward the docks, specifically heading into the largest building attached to them and opening the door so they can all go inside. Once inside, where they'd normally see men working in a hurry, there are only a few who showed up to work today, each of them being extremely careful to try and figure out if a package is going to harm them in any way before they touch it.

Hige is mindful for the trip, and mindful once they get there. He's especially aware when they go to the warehouse but he doesn't say anything. Nope, he leaves it all up to Daichi. He's just going to keep people from dying, that's about it. Any mistakes Daichi makes…well, that's all on him! Of course he /could/ ask for help, but this is Daichi we're talking about.

Daichi when arriving listens to the man nodding as they go, and for the most part just takes in what he has to say. The idea of exploding packages has him worried though so even as they are being led to this warehouse he keeps looking around as if one may appear out of nowhere. He eyes everyone that is here to work, but there does not seem to be as many as you would expect. "People afraid to come in for work?" He looks at everything the workers are doing carefully examining everything closely. He glances back at Hige for a moment as if to ask what to do, but looks back at the man in front of him. "What kind of self destruction has it been? Anything that seemed off besides just a simple explosive tag?" He then looked back at the others and knowing that at least two of them may have a good chance to find something speaks up. "Ummm. I suppose we should look around some? If you find anything ummm report to me on it." It was easy to tell he didn't know how to act in this role.

Shugo would follow along quietly and look around the warehouse once they were inside, examining the area as well as what made up the contents that were most likely to be processed within the walls. He had a few curiosities of his own but he mostly stayed silent to allow Daichi the chance to lead this investigation and also to see what it was the other genin might notice or ask. The question on the kinds of explosions was a good one though the Nara smiled a bit and made a bit of a motion with his hands to give an example. "Explosive tags are large but mostly they're made up of the explosive force and little fire so there would be searing marks but no actual flames needing to be put out in most cases."

"I don't think that's what this is, though I could be wrong, at least on some of them," the old man says, shaking his head. "It's very strange. Some of the boxes caught on fire. Some of them suddenly gained weight, and, when you opened them, dirt and rocks that weren't supposed to be in the shipment were there. Some them even started leaking water from crates that didn't even have liquid containers in them!" He seems quite perplexed, largely stressed out even. "If we don't figure out what's going on, all business from this town could stop, and we'll become a ghost town."

Hmm, well that's all quite interesting. But still Hige is silent, glancing from the crates to Daichi and quirking a brow at the orders before nodding. "You got it boss," he says simply before he and Konsho split to start investigating crates, using their enhanced senses to try and pick up on anything out of the ordinary as they go about.

Daichi scratches at his cheek as he thinks on what the older man said. "So it sounds like ninjutsu of some kind. I have heard of people summoning elements from a scroll before… maybe that is something like this?" He stands there as he thinks, and looks over at the boxes. "When and where did the most recent one take place? And sir. Don't worry. We came here to solve this, and we will do just that." He offered a small smile before waiting for a response.

Shugo was glad to see the connection being made and tilted his head a bit as he began straying slightly away from Daichi and Hige, begnning to lightly touch the crates, giving them slight shoves at times to see how heavy one to another they were. "Have you noticed any consistencies at all with the crates? Points of origin, contents in general; were they canned, boxed or baked, a mixture?" The Nara began questioning with a slight raise of a brow while looking from the chief to Daichi and then finally to Hige to see if the pup had already figured things out.

"It happens all over the place," the old man answers. "A few of the guys are lucky and only have to set boxes down because they get too heavy or leak, but some of them have gotten seriously hurt. Those guys have to stay home, and there are others who said they're sick because they're just too scared to come to work. The items all go through the same import office, but none of the people who work there are shinobi. Some of them are just kids making extra money. There's no rhyme or reason, but most of the shipments are completely ruined before we can do anything about it."

Annnnd Hige just continues examining crates for now, letting Daichi continue to take the lead on the investigation. He just goes about inspecting crates that have been opened before moving to closed ones to examine them curiously, sniffing for anything that might be weird, like explosive tags. It's a rather intriguing problem to be honest…

Daichi frowns as the old man speaks. "Well….we may need someone to go look at the boxes as they arrive if you know when the next set of packages are to arrive. And yeah I want to know one other thing. Is there any pattern to what shipments are ruined? Like a specific thing each time? Or is it always a random delivery not matter what's inside?"

With there being no reason the old man could seem to thinik of and the fact the attacks were happening all over the place seemed to make it sound like a prank but the words that it would turn the town into a ghost town stood out to Shugo as he knocked on one of the crates to his left. "Do you have any businesses in competition with you? Anyone that's tried buying you out in the recent months?"

"It's all basically random," the old man ays, shaking his head to Daichi then looking over to Shugo. "Not really. All sorts of businesses use our port to bring things in. It's not like the other ports are lacking for business, so they have no need to sabotage us. All this is pretty random. I don't really know who would want to hurt business here, but I'm sure you all can figure it out." With that he finally goes to sit down in his office and leaves this situation to the shinobi.

Nothing seems really unusual about the shipping crates. They're all just different sorts of packages. The only consistency is that the ones that didn't burn or get filled with rocks are all packed with the same kind of paper, including the ones that don't seem to have any damage at all, though some of those have the paper shredded into smaller pieces or crinkled up for some reason.

Daichi nods to the man before walking over to Hige. "Find anything here Hige? Besides more random things that doesn't help much. All I found from speaking to him is a possible shinobi being the culprit as all the element type stuff happening. Besides that I don't know what to think so far." He frowns as he things obviously confused as to what to do.

Hige finishes his examination of the crates and softly chuckles beofre sharing a look with Konsho. "Daichi-sama," Hige practically croons loudly through the warehouse. "I think you should have a look at this." He just leaves it at that, motioning for Konsho to follow him back a few steps. When Daichi comes over he just points to the crates. "Take a close look, let me know what you see. You too Shugo."

That was so sarcastic it hurt Shugo and he wasn't even the one being called over. The Nara suppressed a smirk since he was on a mission and then started over toward the crates to peer into what Hige seemed to have found, looking over the crates and lifting a brow slightly with curiosity before he'd step back and then look at Daichi, giving him some time to lead the mission before he'd speak up.

Daichi looks down into the crate and stares blankly for a moment. Why was this familiar to him. "Hmmm?" He scratches at his cheek a moment and then the answer hits him like a train. "OH! This is chakra paper. You know the stuff to test element affinity stuff. That doesn't turn into the element itself though. When I was tested it became ash not pure fire." He looked to Hige confused.

"Yes, but imagine an entire crate igniting at once Daichi. Once piece might burn so quickly and flutter to ash, but and entire crate at once? I'm surprised no one's dead." Hige reaches out to ruffle Daichi's hair. "Good job squirt. The rest of the crates are filled with the same things. The chakra affinity of the workers is bleeding through, even if they aren't shinobi. The affinity is still there and chakra is in every living thing. I think you have a report to give to our customer. And then paperwork to fill out at home. Cause…I don't feel like doing it and you lead this mission."

Shugo would chuckle a bit at what Hige had to say about paper work, a smirk lingering on his face finally now that the issue had been resolved with the effects of the chakra paper.. It could be a useful tool in other ways though it would be an expensive thing to play with if he were to do that.. Sadly it wasn't an option as far as trying to bomb people with the stuff. "That's a lot less mischievious than I expected on the way over here."

Problem figured out… Of course, they haven't actually figured out WHO is doing it, but they at least know how it's been done and can report it for further investigation.